Calgary lawyer encourages Western Canadian law students to experience Quebec culture

News

Published: 2Dec2008

Bryan Haynes, BA’90, LLB’93, wants other
students from outside Quebec to have the same opportunity he had to
study law in a bilingual environment.

Haynes spent his formative years in British Columbia, but that
didn’t stop him from moving to Montreal as a law student – where he
immersed himself in the city’s rich mixture of French and English
traditions while studying at McGill’s Faculty of Law. Today, Haynes
is a partner at the Calgary office of Bennett Jones LLP. He leads
the commercial transactions practice group, and works extensively
in cross-border transactions between Canada and the US. But Haynes
remains committed to bilingualism and credits McGill’s Faculty of
Law with helping him grasp early on the importance of thinking
beyond jurisdictional boundaries.

As a tribute to his alma mater, Haynes generously
donated $25,000 to the Quebec Research Centre of Private &
Comparative Law, based at McGill’s Faculty of Law. The money will
enable students from outside Quebec to work on the Centre’s main
initiative – the bilingual Dictionnaires de droit privé /
Private Law Dictionaries.

The Dictionaries Project has the mammoth task of maintaining and
updating the volumes, which serve to outline Quebec’s private law
system in civilian terms. The volumes are published in both French
and English, and are considered essential to understanding Quebec’s
civil law.

“The mix of cultures and languages make Montreal and McGill so
special,” said Haynes. “I am honoured to have been able to take my
McGill education back to Alberta, and I would love for other young
people from outside of Quebec to have the opportunity to experience
the same kind of richness.”

McGill Law Professor Lionel Smith – currently the Director of
the Centre, and who taught law in Edmonton before coming to McGill
– said the QRCPCL is extremely grateful for Haynes’ generosity.

“Students are the lifeblood of the Dictionaries Project,” said
Smith. “And because these dictionaries have become an essential
tool for Quebec jurists, legal translators and scholars working in
comparative law, the young people involved in the project are
actually improving access to justice, while being immersed in a
deep and scholarly way in the bilingual reality of Quebec civil
law.”

Students hired through the fund will be known as Bryan Haynes
Researchers. Law students from outside of Quebec will be eligible
for these summer research positions, but preference will be given
to people from Western Canada.